Voltage
by fazeout
Summary: Static and Gear land in an alternate universe.


Voltage

By John Rose

A boy in a green jumpsuit with elbow, knee pads and a metal dome on his back sat in an abandoned, derelict gas station at his workbench finishing one of his many projects. Ktzz The blonde teen turned his head toward his earliest invention, the Shock Box "Gear, I've taken care of the Meta-Breed. What did you want, over?" Ktzz

Gear picks up the walkie-talkie and pressed down the button. Ktzz "Just get here and I'll show you. It'll make crime fighting a lot easier, over." Ktzz He put it back on the worktable out of his way. Gear bent down over his invention and kept working.

Twenty minutes later, an African-American raven haired teen flew in the front door. The raven haired teen landed to find his partner, Gear standing there in front of something covered with a tarp. "So what did you want to show me?" Gear's smile just widened as he turned and grabbed the corner of the tarp. When he pulled the tarp off, they both were staring at a large metal ring with boxy machinery attached to the side. "So what is it?"

Gear thumped his forehead with his hand then shook his head. "It's a teleporter, Static." Static gave Gear the most doubting look he'd ever seen. "What do you want a demonstration?" Static just nodded to his friend. "Alright, Backpack…" the metal dome that was latched onto Gear's back fell off and landed on its four metal legs with a red eye that extended on a long metal tube-like neck. The red eye turned up toward Gear. He knelt in front of the teleporter and turned it on and punched in coordinates. Suddenly the ring was filled with a swirling vortex of greys. Backpack looked away from his master and toward the portal and walked through it. The inventor cocked one eye brow up and looked at Static with a goofy grin.

Static looked around. "So where did you send him?" he asked.

Gear just took his forefinger and raised it up toward the ceiling.

"He's on the roof?" Static responded

"Yep."

Static pulled out the disk he rode in on, unfolded it, threw it at the floor, and pointed his finger at it, which emitted a electric-magnetic field which repelled the disk off of the earth own magnetic field. He hopped on it and flew out the door which he magnetically opened. Gear followed on his flying skates and they both flew up toward the roof of the gas station. When they both got to eye level Backpack turned his mechanical eye toward his creator. Gear landed and Backpack jumped on to Gear's back. They both flew into the gas station.

When they got inside Gear looked at the clock on the gas station wall. "Gear, how does it work?" Static asked

"Worm holes, Static, I've got to go. I'm late for supper that's the third time this week." Gear took off his costume and threw his civvies on. "See you later." Gear ran out the front door. Static just continued to look at the machine in awe. i _He really out did himself this time. /i _With that thought, Static flew home and spent the rest of the night doing homework.

Zzt zzzt zzzzt zzzzzt zzzzzzt Static's head rolled over, eyes half open. He glared at the clock as his sister, Sharon, opened the door. "Nice to see ya up, Virgil, you lazy bum." She walked in and opened the windows to the bright day light. "You want to take out the trash you forgot last night?"

"Ahhhh…shut the blinds." Virgil rolled over and pulled the covers over his head.

"Virgil, get up, Dad already left for work and you have to take out the trash before you and Richie do anything this weekend." Sharon said.

Virgil sat up in bed and glared at her. "Well…get out I need to get dressed." Sharon turned and left Virgil's room. Virgil grabbed the Shock Box he had on his night stand. Ktzz "Richie, you up, over?" Ktzz

Ktzz "Up and at the station. Did you know the station has a leak in the roof, over?" Ktzz The Shock Box sounded off.

Ktzz "A leak? Did it rain last night, over?" Ktzz Virgil said to the Shock Box.

Ktzz "Rain, last night it poured, the whole station was flooded when I got here, over." Ktzz

Ktzz "I'll be there as fast as I can, over." Ktzz Virgil jumped over his bed, used his powers to levitate his clothes, put them on, ran down stairs grabbed his backpack, checked for his sister in the kitchen. The garbage lit up with a purplish aura and floated toward the front door, when the trash got there Virgil opened the door. On the other side was his sister on the phone, facing the street, talking to her boyfriend. Virgil grabbed the bag just before his sister could turn around to see the bag floating. "Just taking the trash out before I leave." Virgil dropped the trash bag on the curb and took off running.

When he knew he was out of Sharon's sight he changed into his Static costume and with the help of his disk, he made his way to the gas station. When he got there he found Richie still in his civvies with a towel drying off some of his inventions. "Is everything alright Richie?"

"I think everything'll be okay. I dried everything that got wet."

Weet Weet Weet Richie reached into his backpack and grabbed his helmet. He put it on and read the display. "A bank is being robbed across town. Let's take the teleporter."

"You dried that thing out right?"

"Of coarse I did, it was the first thing that I dried off." Richie put the rest of his costume on and attached Backpack. Then Richie bent down and twisted knobs and flipped switches to set the location. He stood up and walked toward the portal with Static by his side as the many greys started to swirl.

A small puddle had formed over the night on the roof of the station. The puddle had spent all night working away at the small crack in the ceiling when it suddenly broke free and fell toward the exhaust vents of the teleporter. It made its way into the machine to rest on a mother board. The water was suddenly shocked as the mother board short circuited. A plume of smoke went unnoticed by the two super heroes as they went through the portal into the swirling greys of the worm hole.

In a split second both Static and Gear made it to the other side of the worm hole. "Umm…Static I don't think we're in Dakota anymore." As both Static and Gear looked around they saw what only reminded them of ruins. All the buildings were either missing most or all of their window panes. All the buildings had large holes knocked out of the sides and fronts. Static could also see some buildings that had fallen down from what he could only guess was lack of support. What little grass there was had turned brown and the trees had gone bare. The sky was clouded over and the only natural light that made it through was a yellowish-orange color. The few cars that were on the street were rusted and had been stripped of their useful parts long ago. Gear could tell the roads hadn't been worked on in years and he doubted that people here even cared.

Both of the superheroes kept stepping away from the portal that brought them to this place. Pop Gear recognized the sound but still mimicked Static's action of spinning around. Both teens stared at the empty space that had once been their only way home.

Static turned toward Gear with the most desperate look on his face. "What happened?"

Gear started to rub the back of his helmeted head. "The portal shut down. It has a timer so that we don't use up too much power and attract too much attention or so our enemies won't make it to the base." Gear laughed weakly.

"Well you have a way of turning it back on, don't you?" Static said as he starting remembering all the bad sci-fi movies he'd seen.

Gear reached into one of his belt pouches and pulled out of a small plastic remote. "This should… " Gear raised his arm and pointed it at the empty space where the portal had been. He pressed a button. "…turn it on." The space surprised Gear when it didn't do anything at all, so he hit the button again. Nothing happened. "We must be out of range. Or the machine has been destroyed by now."

Static was starting to get really worried. "What do you mean by 'destroyed by now'?"

Gear rubbed his chin. "I think that we may be in the future?"

"Gear, I've been to the future and it's nothing like this. The future may not be a shining utopia but it's not a wasteland."

Gear continued to rub his chin. "Well, it's said that worm holes could lead to different dimensions. We could be in an alternate Dakota." Gear suddenly started to stare past Static into empty space. He lowered his voice. "Something's moving behind us… no…what three things…seven…Static something's wrong my read out says we're surrounded and whatever it is it keeps multiplying, but… only some are getting smaller. I'd say they're meta-human. But I've never seen anyone w…" Gear was suddenly caught off guard by what most people would say is an impossibility. Both superhero teens were caught in a dome of darkness that both of them recognize: _Nightingale_. Crack But before either of them could say anything to the other, both were hit by something across the back of the head. Static was knocked out clean, but Gear was protected by his helmet. He could feel his helmet break and he knew he didn't want to take a shot like that with his helmet broken, so he fell.

The isolation from his senses was broken by the sound of someone speaking in a hushed voice. "The one in the helmet isn't knocked out. Give him the gas." Before Gear could react his helmet was off and he'd began breathing in a foul odor.


End file.
